The present invention relates to semiconductive materials and, more particularly, the present invention relates to semiconductive glass fibers and fabrics.
Semiconducting materials are widely known at the present time. These materials have been developed and investigated for substantial periods of time for many applications. One of the applications for which such materials have been developed is a protective and insulating material which is able to dissipate static electricity. Semiconducting materials which will dissipate static electricity have been developed for many uses. The term "semi-conducting" herein refers to a material having a resistivity in the range of 10.sup.-1 ohms per square to 10.sup.12 ohms per square, which upper and lower resistivity values define insulators and conductors respectively. Some such materials generally comprise a fabric which is impregnated with a semiconducting material and thus becomes semiconductive. Another method of making such semiconductive materials is to utilize a carbon or other type of semiconducting paint and paint it onto a particular type of fabric whereupon the fabric becomes semiconductive. One of the difficulties with such materials has been that they are difficult to form into intricate and complex shapes. Further, for the most part, such prior art semiconductive materials have been susceptible to temperature changes and changes in ambient conditions. Furthermore, paints which contain conductive fillers are difficult to apply reproducibly, because the resulting resistivity of the cured coating is highly dependent on such variables as mixing time and solvent content. In addition, most such materials are quite expensive to produce and are difficult to justify for applications where large amounts of them have to be used.
For many applications, it is necessary that such semiconductive materials be tough and have a high degree of abrasion resistance. Further, it should be possible to control the resistivity of the semiconductive materials such that it can be produced to a certain resistivity for certain types of applications. Such semiconductive materials are particularly glass fabrics that are semiconductive and that have the above properties have been found suitable for many applications and are suitable for applications in the construction of numerous devices.
It is one object of the present invention to provide for an inexpensive and abrasion-resistant semiconductive material.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide for semiconductive glass fibers and glass fabrics which are inexpensive to produce, abrasion-resistant and resistant to ambient conditions.
It is still an additional object of the present invention to provide for a semiconductive glass fabric whose resistivity can be varied easily and controllably for different applications of the material.
It is yet an additional object of the invention to provide for semiconductive glass fibers and glass fabric which can be molded or formed with facility to any shape that is desired.
It is yet still another object of the present invention to provide for a simple and cheap static electricity dissipating fabric.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide for a method for producing inexpensive semiconducting glass fibers.
It is yet a still further object of the present invention to provide for a method for producing an abrasion-resistant, static electricity dissipating glass fabric whose resistivity can be easily controlled and which can be easily formed to the desired shape.
These and other objects are accomplished by means of the invention described herein below.